#CIO100EA: Digital Transformation needs to be a top priority to your business

Digital transformation should be a top priority in any organization.

Laura Chite, Chief Executive of CIO East Africa stressed during the ongoing CIO 100 Symposium and Awards non its seventh year. The convergence turns out to be the most powerful gathering of CIOs and senior IT and business executives. Leadership, innovation and business strategy top our agenda as we examine the latest opportunities and challenges in our fast-changing world.

Themed as Digital Transformation, this year’s event will explore on ways that organization can ride on digital transformation to enhance their service delivery as they reduce the Capex cost and increase on their Opex cost to drive profitability in their businesses.

Digital transformation is a hot topic today, which simply means the re-invention of an organization using digital technology to improve performance. DX as it is famously known today, is a priority for many businesses these days. Why is it so important to the modern business?

Ms Chite also cited the benefits of DX to any business which largely revolved around improved efficiency, improved decision making, improved customer satisfaction which at the end of the day will drive the company profits.

“The big question still remains to be what will my business get out of digital transformation? Do the benefits outweigh the time and effort needed to complete the project and so on. The fact is, the world is going digital yet many businesses are unprepared. The technologies, skills, and processes they have in place do not translate to a digital world. The modern company must transform itself to adapt to the technology and processes needed in today’s digital world,” Laura Chite, Chief Executive Officer, CIO East Africa

“The big question still remains to be what will my business get out of digital transformation? Do the benefits outweigh the time and effort needed to complete the project and so on. The fact is, the world is going digital yet many businesses are unprepared. The technologies, skills, and processes they have in place do not translate to a digital world. The modern company must transform itself to adapt to the technology and processes needed in today’s digital world,” added Ms. Chite.

During her presentation, Ms. Chite also shared the steps are quite critical to succeed in the digital transformation. First, CIOs will be required to make transformation a top strategic priority. Business outcomes also need to drive digital transformation. CIOs will also be required to ride on the potential of data analytics which is not fully utilized yet.

She also added that companies will be required to learn how to be marry technology with Human Resource.

“There is also need to change the company culture to achieve DX. There is no way we can achieve DX through working in silos.

According to a study by IDC, by the end of 2017, two-thirds of the CEOs of Global 2000 companies will have digital transformation at the center of their corporate strategy. In the era of DX, The biggest disruptive technologies, as specified by global respondents, are the cloud (58 per cent), mobility and collaboration (54 per cent) and data (52 per cent) while the digital market could add US$ 95 billion per year to the annual GDP of the Middle East by 2020.

“This presents a huge opportunity for any CIO in the room. In the two days, we will explore more on the digital transformation. There’s no better time to be in IT as CIO’s are now in charge of taking the business digital as they are required to deliver modern products and services to their customers. Because of this, it’s imperative that CIO’s leverage the right technology and collaborate with their co-executives to provide the best possible experience for their customers,” she concluded.